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Spanish stocks - Factors to watch on Tuesday

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:46:20 -0400

The Eurozone’s largest bank is in talks to sell a third of its real estate assets valued at 3 billion euros ($4.1 billion)to two risk capital funds, Expansion reported citing sources close to the talks.Expansion said the deal could take months to close given that Santander does not accept the 70 percent discount to the valuation of the assets that the the funds are offering and is only prepared to sell them at a maximum discount of 40 percent.Santander declined to comment.BANKSThe Bank of Spain will publish bad loans data for the country’s banking system in August.IBEXSpain’s Treasury ‘s 12 and 18 month T-bill auctions will provide another measure of investor confidence in the country’s economy.IAGThe chief executive of Iberia, BA’s partner in the merged IAG group, speaks at a press breakfast in Madrid.Separately, The Irish government has spoken to Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways and International Airlines Group (IAG) about the possibility of buying the state’s 25 percent stake in Aer Lingus , Irish broadcaster RTE reported on Monday.ACCIONAThe energy and construction group has teamed up with India’s Connect Power to develop 600 megawatts of wind power in the state of Gujarat, Cinco Dias reported citing Acciona sources.For today’s European market outlook double click on .For real-time moves on the Spanish blue-chip index IBEX please double click onFor IBEX constituent stocks highlight .IBEX in the command box and press the F3 button on your keyboardFor latest news on Spanish stock moves double clickFor Spanish language market report double click onFor latest Eurostocks report please double click on ($1 = 0.727 Euros)

UPDATE 2-Chevron sees Q3 profit flat vs Q2, boosted by sale

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:14:31 -0400

By Braden ReddallOct 11 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp expects third-quarter earnings similar to the previous quarter, with lower oil prices and output offset by a $500 million gain on the sale of its Welsh refinery and British and Irish marketing assets.The second-largest U.S. oil company reported a $7.7 billion net profit in the second quarter, and analysts had previously been looking for $6.5 billion on average in the third quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.But any improvement in near-term profit estimates could be offset by lingering concerns about efforts by leading private-sector oil companies to increase their oil and gas production.Chevron’s international oil-equivalent production fell to 1.93 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first two months of the quarter from 2 million in all of the second quarter, the company said in its quarterly interim update on Tuesday.Chevron said this drop largely reflected a now-remediated third-party pipeline incident in Thailand and planned work in Kazakhstan and Britain, predicting better production this quarter as these effects disappear and new output is added.Average U.S. production in July and August fell to 676,000 bpd from 694,000 in the second quarter, it said, blaming that on maintenance work in the Gulf of Mexico.In total, Chevron reported 2.60 million bpd of oil-equivalent production for the first two months of the quarter, down from 2.69 million in the second quarter.In July, Chevron trimmed its average 2011 output estimate by 30,000 bpd to 2.76 million, assuming oil at $79 per barrel, or 2.73 million bpd with Brent crude prices assumed at $111. Under production-sharing contracts, pricier oil means Chevron must leave more output in the hands of state-owned partners around the world.Brent crude averaged $112 per barrel in the quarter, down from $117 in the second quarter but up from $77 a year before.Chevron switched to using Brent from the U.S. benchmark of West Texas Intermediate earlier this year when calculating production-sharing contract changes.Chevron, offering the quarter’s first big oil company view of last quarter, cited data showing refining margins were mixed overall. They edged higher in Singapore and Europe, while U.S. refining margins came off their second-quarter peaks, which was anticipated by a Chevron executive in May.As for the one-off $500 million gain for the downstream division, Valero Energy Corp , the largest U.S. company focused solely on refining, closed its $730 million purchase of Chevron’s Pembroke refinery in August.Chevron shares slipped immediately after the interim update, but were last trading just 5 cents lower at $97.55 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.The San Ramon, California-based company reports its third-quarter results on Oct. 28.

Russia's Putin says little role for BRICS in euro crisis

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 03:50:58 -0400

By Gleb BryanskiBEIJING, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the crisis-hit euro zone had enough resources to resolve its own troubles without support from Russia and fellow BRICs countries.As concern rise over weak growth and plunging stock markets, officials from the so-called BRICs emerging economies, including heavyweights China, Brazil and India, have floated plans to support Europe by using their currency reserves to buy bonds and help solve the euro area debt crisis.But Putin’s comments were a reminder of scepticism over the plan in Russia — holder of the world’s third largest gold and foreign exchange reserves, which has over two-fifths of its $517 billion in foreign reserves invested in euro-zone sovereign debt.”The big European economies have enough resources to resolve their own problems,” Putin said, while welcoming a plan by Germany and France to recapitalise Europe’s troubled banks as a “positive signal.”“I do not think that the BRICs countries can play any particular kind of role,” Putin said in an interview with Chinese state media during a visit to Beijing.Putin, who has announced plans to return to the presidency in 2012, also hinted that U.S. Federal Reserves’ purchases of treasuries were “bad” for the country’s fiscal discipline, saying the United States was profiting from the dollar’s “monopoly” as the main reserve currency.”The Federal Reserve is buying treasuries, that is simply printing money. I do not want to make any judgements, maybe our American colleagues know better, but in the past that is not how they advised us to behave,” Putin said.Asked to clarify his statement this summer describing the United States as a “parasite” on the global economy, Putin said:”I did not say that America is being parasitic on the world economy. America is being parasitic with the dollar’s monopoly position,” Putin said.

Heartland Payment unit buys School-Link Technologies

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:34:33 -0400

Oct 11 (Reuters) - Payment processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc said its unit Heartland School Solutions acquired privately held School-Link Technologies Inc, for an undisclosed amount, to expand its market share in the school services payments industry.School-Link provides K-12 school nutrition and point-of-sale solutions like processing payments made for school meals, Heartland said in a statement.Heartland has acquired three other K-12 service providers over the past 10 months, including MySchoolBucks.com, which lets parents pay for school meals and student activity fees using a credit or debit card.The company said it now has a nearly 20 percent share of the K-12 public schools market.The Princeton, New Jersey-based company told Reuters in an interview in September it sees scope for growing its market share and margins at a time when the sluggish U.S. economy is expected to hurt its larger rivals.Heartland’s shares closed at $20.34 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.